CONTENTS
A talent for loving
Click here to buy the book
Author: Condon Richard (1915-1991)
Year: 1961
The Germans have a well-deserved reputation for cruelty: their operas last three days and they have no word for fluffy.
- Rowan Atkinson as Blackadder
301. The bartender slid a bottle down to him along the top of the polished bar. It stopped directly in front of him. He reached a glass, poured a shot into it, and gulped it down. He poured another and sipped it; nectar it was, a wonderful medicine and a great whisky all in one. The bartender followed the bottle, walking slowly, polishing the ruby-red wood of the bar with a large soft rag as he came. The saloon and the bar-room were among the most elegant Moodie could remember seeing for well over two thousand miles. Why – this barman might even be able to make a proper Fandooka, which Mr Moodie had not enjoyed since a glorious evening in the Illustrators' Club in Calcutta, so many years before.
"Do you make a Fandooka, my man?"
"A what?"
Fandooka. F.A.N.dooka. You know, Gum Arabic, seven parts okooleeau, a touch of falernum, six ounces of Holland Gin, a pony of slivovitz, a sling of arrack –"
"No."
"Ah. Thought you might. Looks like that sort of place."
"I fool around a little with new drinks on my day off, but I never heard of that one." The barman stared at the bottle in front of Mr Moodie. "Stranger, ain't you?"
"Yes."
"I knew that for true."
"My – uh – speech?"
"No."
"My costume?" Mr Moodie was wearing a battered but still elegantly tall beaver hat in one of the lighter chocolate shades. His lapels, upon a long-skirted coat, were of fawn over brick-coloured wool. He wore a paisley Ascot cravat. The effect was handsome in the extreme but no one, on the other hand, would have mistaken him for a local cowpuncher.
"I mighta noticed your suit later."
"How then?"
"It was the way you drank the furniture polish.
Moodie took two steps backward. "Furniture polish?" He beat his chest. "I?"
"First time I ever seed it done."
"But you served it to me! I thought it was your crude whisky."
"No, sir. I did not serve it to you. I was polishin' my bar like I always do. I finished up at that end, so I slid the bottle up to this end to work up here and you took it and you drunk it."
"But – it's delicious." Moodie reached out and poured himself another shot. He tasted it carefully, rolling it over his tongue and washing it across his taste buds. "You may say that this is furniture polish, sir, and you may very well use it as furniture polish, but let me say that it is absolutely delicious."
Charily, the bartender half filled a shot glass and drew it to his lips. He sipped. "You're right," he said with awe in his voice. "This here is wonderful stuff."
Print this article
Email this article